


Something New

by Fallynleaf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, First Kiss, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 11:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13833618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallynleaf/pseuds/Fallynleaf
Summary: Jody and Donna finish a hunt. This one's different.





	Something New

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the beginning of this fic way back in December of 2014, after which it languished in my hard drive for over three years. It was originally supposed to be the beginning of the same longfic that I ultimately ended up condensing down into [Some Call It Living](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3458507). The rest of this fic was written very last minute for Femslash February, though the plot of the second half of it is the same plot that I'd originally planned for that longfic back in 2014. This fic operates somewhat parallel with Some Call It Living, but expands upon the beginning and the ending of that fic.
> 
> [Girls Night Out](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2725373), my very first Jody/Donna fic, isn't a prerequisite to understanding this fic, but a few of the events in that fic are alluded to here.
> 
> My apologies if this fic is a little rough around the edges. After the beautiful gift that was Wayward Sisters, I couldn't resist writing Jody/Donna again for Femslash February, even though grad school made it a struggle to finish!

"Hey!" Donna said brightly over the phone, her tone like she was going to invite Jody to maybe a party or a football game. "I just saw a report that sounds like a vamp attack in Minneapolis. Wanna come?"

It was the weekend, and Jody had used almost none of her vacation time, and besides, it's not like Alex couldn't drive herself if she wanted to go somewhere, so she found herself saying: "Give me a little time to pack some things, and I'll be there in four hours."

Jody didn't tell her adopted daughter that mommy was leaving for the weekend to slay some vampires. Jody tried not to talk too much about vampires around Alex. So she gave some excuse about going to visit a friend for the weekend, received a nonchalant teenager shrug in response, added the rote warnings: no hosting wild parties, don't do anything too reckless, stay safe, etc., and then Jody left.

It was Donna's second hunt, and Donna was just as good this time around as she had been the first.

The nest was small: there were only two vamps, and Jody and Donna fought them back-to-back and beheaded them almost at the same time.

"That was easier than last time," Donna panted, adrenaline shaking through her frame like confidence.

"Nests this small are rare. We got lucky," Jody said, expelling a hard breath. She looked at Donna, caught her smile, then Jody's eyes blew wide and she said, "Shit, Donna, your arm!"

Donna glanced down at it. "Eh, it's not that bad. Doesn't hurt as bad as it looks," she said.

"C'mon, I have a first-aid kit in the car—let's get that cleaned up before you get blood all over your clothes." Jody stayed close beside Donna the whole walk there, watching for any vamps that might be lurking outside the building. The smell of blood was thick enough in the air. Strong and pungent, it filled Jody's nostrils every time she took in a breath.

Donna was quiet as Jody wrapped the bandage. Calm. Her arm was warm beneath Jody's touch, her heartbeat steady.

"You're going to get scars, you know," Jody said softly. It's what this job does to you: it breaks you and then you either put yourself back together or bleed out on the cold pavement.

“I know,” Donna said. “It’ll make me look like a—y’know.”

“...Like a badass?”

“Yeah!”

 

* * *

 

That was the start of it. The start of a long tail of monster hunts, an exhausting trudge through guts and gore, playing at being heroes. Jody and Donna were self-appointed sheriffs of a several-hundred-miles-wide swath of monster’s no-man’s-land, patrolling it ruthlessly and obsessively.

It was what Jody did instead of a hobby. Where she went to get away from the humduggery of playing at peace.

But she still couldn’t get away from her own damn mind. The part of her that said _you’re going to pull her down into a hell that’ll eventually break her, too_.

But every time Jody pulled them both down, Donna dragged her up. Sometimes literally—a warm hand clasped around her arm, yanking her out of harm’s way. And sometimes it was more abstract, a little note of optimism embellishing even the most hopeless of situations.

They got through it. They kept each other alive, kept each other going.

 

* * *

 

And then there was one hunt that was different than all the rest.

At the end of it, Jody felt, well, _lighter_ somehow. The whole neighborhood was out in the streets, scratched and bruised, a little weary, but smiling and embracing each other in celebration.

Donna beamed at Jody from where she stood sandwiched between the arms of two six-year-olds. “We did good today,” Donna said.

“Yeah.” Jody exhaled a breath. Told herself it was over, it was done, and she could let herself relax. After every hunt, she had to remind herself how to relax. It got harder every time.

The two six-year-olds scampered off, and Donna came over and helped Jody lift a bag of guns and knives and salt into the back of Donna’s truck. “I’m glad no one had to die this time,” Donna said. She slammed the door to the truck closed, dusted off her hands, and turned around.

“Oh. That’s what’s different,” Jody said. She leaned up against the side of the truck, letting the still-warm metal support her. “No one died.”

“That’s got to have happened before, right?” Donna asked.

“Not for me,” Jody said. “Most hunts don’t even show up on the radar until after a body turns up.”

“Well, we caught this one just in the nick of time!” Donna said.

“Yeah,” Jody said. She closed her eyes briefly. Told herself to _breathe_. Then felt the last remaining tension drain out of her. “Yeah, we did,” she said.

“Hey!” a voice called out.

Jody looked to her left, where a man stood, waving at them. The man’s name was Robert or Richard or something. Jody hadn’t had time to learn all of their names. All of the names of the people that she’d saved tonight.

“Heading out so soon?” the man asked.

“Got a bit of a drive ahead of us,” Jody said.

“You should stay for our New Year’s party!” the man said. “Let us show our appreciation for everything that you did for us.”

Jody sighed. “I shouldn’t. Claire and Alex are back home, and—”

“Aren’t they going to a New Year’s party of their own tonight?” Donna interrupted.

“Well, yeah,” Jody said.

“So, you were just going to spend the night alone,” Donna said.

“I mean, it’s not really a holiday that matters, right?” Jody said.

“Nonsense!” the man said. “It’s the holiday that most merits throwing a party for! And my family goes all out on it every single year, vampires be damned!”

Jody opened her mouth, but she didn’t have any excuses left. “Alright. Okay. I’ll stay,” she said.

Both Donna and the man let out a loud whoop. Someone else in the neighborhood picked it up and echoed it back, and then people started cheering, celebrating, if nothing else, the simple fact that they were _alive_.

 

* * *

 

Robert—Richard was his brother’s name—lived in an old house with faded wallpaper, dim, uneven lighting, and floorboards that creaked. It fit the whole neighborhood inside of it, but only barely, the walls bursting at the seams with conversation and lively chatter.

Jody found the most out-of-the-way corner, and then she didn’t move.

Donna shouldered her way through the sea of people to reach her.

“Here you go!” Donna said, handing Jody a glass of champagne.

“Oh no, I shouldn’t,” Jody said.

“Why not?” Donna asked.

“Because I—Oh, to hell with it,” Jody said. She reached out and grabbed the glass from Donna, then took a long sip.

As the evening wore on, people kept passing her champagne, and Jody kept accepting it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had this much to drink. Perhaps it had been that night just after she’d met Donna. But even then, she’d restrained herself. There had been a barrier that she had not allowed herself to cross.

Tonight, there were no more barriers. Jody’d arrived already drunk on lingering exhilaration from the hunt, without the emotional baggage of regret inhibiting her.

“Remember when you saved me?” Donna asked, leaning in a little too close.

In this crowded room full of people, everything was a little too close.

“Which time?” Jody asked.

Donna giggled. Jody started giggling, too.

“See?” Donna asked. “Isn’t it fun to have fun?”

Jody felt… loose. Detached in a pleasant way, drifting through the evening in a haze of celebration and community. Something was still missing, but as the night wore on, Jody’s was less and less acutely aware of it.

“Hey, it’s starting!” one of the teenagers yelled.

Everyone clustered around the TV screen, a small, grainy rectangle of light. The television had been dragged out of its usual place to take center stage in the living room.

The bottom of the screen displayed a countdown.

Jody struggled to read the numbers over the distance and the crowd of people that separated her from the screen. It could be ten minutes to the new year, or it could be ten seconds. Either way, there wasn’t much of a difference.

People were starting to couple off. Husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. Sharing meaningful glances, gearing up to start the new year off with a kiss from a loved one.

Jody looked at Donna, and she said, “I wish I had someone to kiss.”

Donna turned towards her. She smiled, big and bright and wide. “Well, silly, you have me.”

_Ten._

_Nine._

_Eight._

_Seven._

_Six._

_Five._

_Four._

_Three._

_Two._

_One._

Noisemakers were going off, whistles and clappers and party horns. Someone jostled Jody, and her plastic glass of champagne slipped through her fingers, spilling all over the worn wooden floor. But Jody didn’t care, because her other hand was reaching towards Donna, who was reaching towards her at the same time.

They kissed in the liminal space between the old and the new.

Donna’s lips were soft and warm, and Jody kissed them once, and then again, and again.

Before they parted, Donna pulled her close, wrapping her arms around Jody. Then she reached up and wiped away a tear that had made its way down Jody’s cheek. “No crying on New Year’s,” Donna said. “It’s bad luck.”

Jody laughed. She leaned into Donna, letting Donna bear the weight of them both, just for a moment. “I’m actually happy, you know,” Jody said.

“I know,” Donna said, her voice soft.

They both watched the people mingling and conversing around them, the people on the TV celebrating in the background.

“I’m glad we found each other,” Donna said.

“Really? Even though it ruined your other life?” Jody asked.

“Ain’t ruined if it wasn’t much good in the first place.”

It was the most pessimistic thing that Jody had ever heard Donna utter in all of the time they’d spent together, in all of the hunts, and the blood, and death.

“Donna—”

“No.” Donna pressed her finger against Jody’s lips, shutting her up. “This, the two of us—is a good thing.”

“I wasn’t going to argue about that,” Jody said.

Donna smiled. “Good.”

 

* * *

 

Later, Robert gave them a ride back to their motel in his old beat-up car. He’d offered to let them stay at his house for the night, but Jody and Donna declined.

They stepped through the threshold into the room with two still-made beds, and then they turned and looked at each other.

This kiss was a slower one, desperate in all the ways that it was soft.

They fell onto the nearest motel bed, tangled up in half-shed clothes, and kissed until they fell apart laughing.

“See? It’s okay,” Donna said. “We’re okay.”

“I know,” Jody said. “After all, I’m in the arms of a badass.”

Donna just giggled and leaned over and kissed her. Jody kissed her back, running her hands over the scars on Donna’s arm, on her side, on her hip.

Sometimes, the things that break you also put you back together.


End file.
